Southern Oregon grapplers roll at home

No. 6 Raiders make quick work of Embry-Riddle, 38-9

The sixth-ranked Southern Oregon University wrestling team kept its home record perfect Thursday night, wrapping up its 38-9 dumping of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical (Ariz.) in a tidy 57 minutes at Bob Riehm Arena.

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Posted Jan. 17, 2014 at 12:01 AM

Posted Jan. 17, 2014 at 12:01 AM

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The sixth-ranked Southern Oregon University wrestling team kept its home record perfect Thursday night, wrapping up its 38-9 dumping of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical (Ariz.) in a tidy 57 minutes at Bob Riehm Arena.

The Raiders grinded out wins in six of eight contested weight classes and were awarded forfeits in the other two. Top-ranked wrestlers Taylor Johnson (197 pounds) and Brock Gutches came through with a pin and a technical fall, respectively, and Travis Patrick (157) threw in one more win by fall.

SOU, which will face Air Force at 5 p.m. Saturday in Corvallis, improved to 5-2 in duals and 4-0 at home.

Seventh-ranked Jacob Stigall started the night with an 8-4 decision of Gilbert Martinez in the 125-pound match, racking up all of his point in the first period for his eighth win of the season. Trevor Hancock (133) followed with a win, taking down Nick Oliver with 27 seconds left to clinch his 6-3 decision.

After Johnathon Gay (141) dropped a 6-5 decision to Robbie Workman on riding time, Tyler Cowger (157) picked up a 5-4 win over Colin Merkley thanks to a tiebreaking escape with 1:25 remaining. Cowger is now 13-5.

"Despite the score, it was a good dual and there was some good wrestling going on for both sides," SOU coach Mike Ritchey said. "They have a legit style; they wrestle hard and we had to overcome some adversity to pull out some matches, so it was a good test for us."

Patrick led Matt Coultas 11-2 after two rounds and finished him off with 1:09 left, upping his record to 8-7. Gutches is 18-3 overall after his manhandling of Jose Cruz, who fell behind 7-0 after the first minute and was down 22-4 when the match ended with 43 seconds on the clock.

Gutches has notched bonus points in all but three of his wins this season.

Johnson, who is now 4-0 in dual action and 8-4 overall, put an abrupt end to the night with his pin of Troy Kilgore 1:10 into the contest. Three of his four dual wins have been by fall and the other by technical fall.